This Week in Ridiculous Pet News: Dog Wedding, Cat Mayor, and More

Mayor Stubbs enjoys a wine glass of water, sprinkled with his favorite catnip.

There was so much insanity in pet news this week, I needed to compile it into one big fat What the Heck post for you.

A small town in Alaska has had a cat for its mayor for 15 years. I’m not sure if Stubbs the cat is being vetted as a running mate for Governor Romney, but I wouldn’t rule it out. (Get it? Vetted?) Also, a NYC dog wedding that cost $270,000 raised $50,000 for the Humane Society of New York, making me question whether anyone can do math any more.

For more details on these, and two more stories in this week in ridiculous pet news, see below.

Alaska town has a cat for a mayor.
The mayor of the small town of Talkeetna, Alaska, is a part-Manx cat named Stubbs. He was elected in a write-in campaign 15 years ago when townspeople weren’t thrilled with any of their other candidates. He has held the (honorary) position since then, says KTUU News. The furry mayor has become something of a tourist attraction for Talkeetna, which is at the base of Mt. McKinley.

Stubbs, who was a kitten when he was elected, mostly hangs around Nagley’s General Store all day. Once a day he indulges in a wine glass of water sprinkled with catnip, residents reported. Interestingly, Stubbs has more Facebook friends (931) than Talkeetna has residents (876 in the 2010 census). Talkeetna is widely considered to be the model for the quirky, fictional town of Cicely in the television show Northern Exposure. It’s about an hour and 20 minutes north of Wasilla, the city that once had Sarah Palin as mayor. (Wasilla had 7,831 residents in the 2010 census.)

Stubbs has a much higher approval rating than most human politicians. “I’m very confident that Talkeetna will be A-OK, as long as we have Stubbs around,” said town resident Skye Farrar, who works at Nagley’s.

Insane $270,000 pet wedding raises $50,000 for Humane Society. You do the math.

Baby Hope, a teacup-sized Coton de Tulear (which apparently is some kind of dog), has a fitting for her custom-made wedding gown by couture designer Henry Roth. The proud mother of the bride, Wendy Diamond, looks on.

Event organizers are tripping over themselves to congratulate each other for setting a world record for the most expensive pet wedding in history, which united two dogs in matrimony, sort of. The event, orchestrated by “TV personality and pets rights activist” Wendy Diamond, cost $270,000 all of which was donated, reports ABC News. The event beat the previous record-holder for pet weddings, a $16,421 ceremony for two cats in Thailand, by a wide margin of insanity.

A $6,000 custom-made wedding dress for the bride, $30,000 worth of flowers, a $5,000 sushi spread and a $15,000 seven-piece orchestra helped propel the wedding into the Guinness Book of World Records. The wedding was officiated by Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, and the cake (for the humans) was made by the “Cake Boss” bakery.

The $270,000 event raised $50,000 for the Humane Society of New York, so I guess it also raised exactly $220,000 worth of “awareness” for the Humane Society of New York.

Yeah. And people say gay marriage makes a mockery of marriage?

You can jam a LOT of viral YouTube videos into a 45-minute film festival.

Nominate videos for the first-ever Internet Cat Video Film Festival!
Because you really can’t ever see too many viral videos of LOLcats, Minneapolis will play host to the first Internet Cat Video Film Festival on August 30.

“It is an experiment,” festival organizer Katie Czarniecki Hill told the Los Angeles Times. “It will be interesting to see if people think it is silly, or great, or a waste of time. But I like the idea of everyone admitting they like cat videos.”

The videos will be chosen by public nomination. You can nominate your favorite Internet cat video here.

Japanese company launches plush, mind-reading cat ears at Comic-Con (of course).
A Japanese company called Neurowear has launched a new product called Necomimi — plush, wearable cat ears that somehow meld with your brain and move in response to your brain activity. The device, similar to a hair band, also involves a sensor that rests on your forehead, which picks up brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG), the with the same technology that doctors use to detect seizures.

Necomimi will retail in the U.S. for $99, and the makers hope to have it available in stores this fall, reports the Los Angeles Times, and they’re currently available online directly from Neurowear’s website.

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